Certain buildings and other structures include doors that automatically lock when shut. In an emergency situation, such doors can trap individuals who do not have a means for unlocking the door, or otherwise slow down emergency personnel requiring access.
For example, doors to a stairwell in a building often lock behind anyone entering the stairwell. Some buildings are designed to automatically unlock these doors in the event of an emergency, such as a fire. However, many older buildings lack this feature.
In the event of a fire or other emergency, Firemen, Policemen or other Emergency personnel, typically use the stairwells to travel through the building to access the fire or other emergency, and to locate anyone trapped in the building. It is often necessary for the Emergency personnel to easily keep any doors from locking behind them.
One solution for preventing the door from locking, is to place tape over the lock mechanism on the door, or the strike plate in the door jamb. This requires the individual to carry such tape and to cut and place enough pieces of tape to ensure the door does not relock. This can be time consuming and may not work depending on the strength of the spring used for the bolt mechanism.
Another, solution is to prop the door open with an object to prevent it from reclosing after an individual has passed through. However, this approach requires one to locate an object large enough to keep the door from shutting (which can be problematic for heavy doors), and creates an impediment to others using the door. Additionally, someone else using the door may dislodge the object and allow the door to close and relock. Moreover, this approach is disadvantageous in those instances where it may be desirable to have the door close behind the individual (e.g., where smoke is entering through the door) but remain unlocked for later use.
Yet another solution sometimes available to Firemen, Policemen or other Emergency personnel, is the use of a master key or set of keys to unlock doors that have locked behind the Emergency personnel. However, in many situations there is an insufficient number of such keys available to the Emergency personnel, forcing two or more crews to share one master key or set of keys. Moreover, in the event fire and/or smoke enters the stairwell, or other location of the structure where the door is located, it may not be possible to easily see or otherwise locate the key or key slot. Precious seconds can be lost re-opening doors in this manner.
The present invention overcomes some or all of the problems associated with past solutions for preventing a door from relocking and/or propping a door open in an emergency situation.